100 signed, limited edition Dark Souls Edge covers on sale this month, with a chance to win the original painting

Celebrate 25 years of Edge by trying to win this beautiful, very limited edition, cover

Hello! I’m Nathan Brown, the editor of Edge magazine, which turns 25 years old this week. Our anniversary issue, Edge 323, goes on sale in print and digital form this Thursday, and is a bit special. So special, in fact, that I apparently need to write a news story for our pals at GamesRadar to properly explain it. We may have gone too far.

Our covers have been painted by renowned UK artist Dave White. Dave’s been reading Edge for almost as long as it’s been on shelves, and graciously agreed to lend us his brushes for four covers, each featuring a character from a favourite game: Halo’s Master Chief, Street Fighter’s Guile, Dark Souls’ Knight Solaire and, err, Super Mario’s Super Mario.

The four have been sorted randomly around our retail and subscriber stock – but Solaire is the real prize, limited to just 100 copies, each signed by White as they came off the printers. Collectors and completionists needn’t miss out, since we’ve produced a limited-edition box set containing all four covers with the Edge masthead removed to bring White’s stunning artwork to the fore.

Dave White’s work doesn’t come cheap – but we’re giving away the original painting of Solaire to one lucky code-breaker. On the inside covers of each of the four editions of the magazine is a code. The key is partially given away – often in some particularly devious places – in the magazine. There’s more in our various digital editions on iPhone, iPad and Android. We’ll be sharing a few in the coming days on our Facebook and Twitter.

Decrypt each code, and you’ll reveal a quote taken from the game, or series of games, on the cover. The first person to email in with all four quotes, perfectly spelt and punctuated, together with who said it and in which specific game, wins the Solaire painting. The next ten win an anniversary box set.

Thanks for reading. Good luck, and here’s to another quarter-century reporting on the most dynamic form of entertainment on the planet.